JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digital addiction—including internet, smartphone, and gaming addiction—has emerged as a significant global health concern. While multiple interventions have been studied, the fragmented nature of existing meta-analyses limits our understanding of comparative effectiveness across addiction types and treatments.

Objective:

The aims of this umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis were to estimate the overall effectiveness of interventions for digital addiction and examine the differential impacts of addiction types, interventions, study designs, and control conditions.

Methods:

The present umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis was systematically searched five electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, APA and the Cochrane Library) from inception to 24 June 2025. We included potential meta-analysis examining the effects of interventions on internet, smartphone or gaming addiction. Random effects models were used to estimate standardized mean differences (SMD). Quality appraisal was performed using AMSTAR-2 and GRADE. The study preregistered at PROSPERO (CRD420251084061).

Results:

We synthesized findings from 29 meta-analyses (Participants N = 66530) comprising 52 effect sizes (I2 = 95.13%). Interventions had a strong overall effect on reducing digital addiction symptoms (SMD = –1.44, 95% confidence intervals (CI): –1.67 to –1.21, p = 0.00). The effects were greatest for internet addiction (SMD = –1.70, 95% CI: -1.99, -1.42), followed by gaming (SMD = –0.82, 95% CI: -1.09, -0.56) and smartphone addiction (SMD = –0.80, 95% CI: -1.39, -0.21). Exercise-based and integrated psychological-exercise interventions yielded the strongest effects (SMD = -3.14, 95% CI: -4.30, -1.97, p = 0.00). In addition, RCTs produced larger effect sizes than mixed designs did, and no-intervention controls yielded stronger effects than mixed controls did. However, the evidence qualities were generally low.

Conclusions:

In conclusion, interventions for digital addictions are effective, although their impacts vary by addiction subtype and intervention type. These findings support tailored, multimodal intervention strategies while underscoring the need for more rigorous and balanced evidence across digital addiction forms.